Young Campers in Love: Who Are the Grown-ups in Moonrise Kingdom?

Popular culture, especially movie culture, is the arena where the struggles of the diverse cultures belonging to age groups are carried out. Moonrise Kingdom is an unusual movie, different from the usual summer or coming of age movies. In such movies, different theories of youth are displayed, providing tools for constructing the political bases of marginalization of adolescents. These theories limit the character traits that can be awarded to all subcultural groups, in this case to youth.     

Intercultural communication and US higher education: How US students and faculty can improve: International students’ classroom experiences

Intercultural communication research rarely addresses the perspective of international students, who face challenges as they leave family, move to a foreign place in the US, pursue a degree, and study in a foreign language. Considering these students’ perspectives, US universities, which house large numbers of international students, should consider how they can help these students better adapt to US academic life. To address these challenges, we invited international students at a 4-year tier-one state university to interview, and we qualitatively analyzed their responses to identify how universities can help international students. Our participants noted that US students can befriend them, respect them in the classroom, and learn about other cultures to be more welcoming. Faculty have the most to do to improve international students’ success in the classroom; faculty can grade consistently, communicate outside the classroom, allow time for students to ask questions, help students adapt to US classrooms, speak slowly and eliminate idioms from examples, explain course objectives per industry, share interests and personal information, effectively use class time (particularly final examination weeks), and learn about cultures to better meet students’ needs. Additional research can diversify international students’ needs per their classification (graduate versus undergraduate), home culture, and expectations.     

Facilitating Intercultural Communication in Parent–Teacher Conferences: Lessons From Child Translators

In this article Abraham Lincoln is considered as an alternative to the usual type of patriot's hero. He reminds us of our great historical failings. He remains a figure of controversy, a national hero in only some corners of society. He is the heroic President who serves as the first compassionate defender of the downtrodden, and he is a hero in those subcultures as well. Lincoln's treatment in the movies is discussed, focusing particularly on the recent movie Lincoln. Lincoln is seen as a match for the usual movie hero. His famous immunity to casual treatment in popular culture is discussed as well.     

Who’s counting whom? Non-National museum attendances in the UK: part 1

ABSTRACT

This paper is the first part of a study on visit numbers to UK regional and local museums. It reviews the limited past research on the topic, examines the motivations for counting such visits and the means required to do so, and explores the methods used from the early nineteenth century to now. A concluding section discusses the theme within the context of modern public policy on museums.

In relating historic context to current practice, it shows that, irrespective of the general use of visit numbers as a proxy for public interest and institutional importance, the practice of collecting museum visit numbers continues to be inconsistent and their publication erratic. It suggests that the lack of accepted good practice makes this an area for improvement.     

Black Like Who?: The Class of 2014 Considers Race in Dear White People

Modern educational institutions were associated with the separation of children from ordinary people and of the schoolhouse from the ordinary world, creating an educational subculture and a minority population of schoolchildren. Passage through this subculture became a universal shared experience. Higher education grew at the same time into an experience that separated those who went to college from those who did not, becoming a basis for the modern class system. Popular culture reflects this split as the college movie, a genre that addresses only part of the movie audience. As in other American institutions, there is also a split between the worlds of Black and White colleges. Only the mainstream White version of college appeared in movies until recently. The African-American-themed college movie was pioneered in School Daze. Dear White People followed that lead. The movie concerns a generation of Black college students whose perspectives rest on a familiarity with more than a half century of ideas about race in America.     

May I have this dance? Dance participation and attendance in Denmark

Although dancing is considered to be an important arts form, and is associated with various positive externalities, our understanding of the profiles of dancers and dance audiences are limited. We address the gap in the literature by exploiting survey data on cultural preferences and habits in Denmark for 2004. Our approach has allowed us to identify the socio-economic background of dancers, as well as their involvement in other cultural activities. Among other factors, we note that dancers are more frequent attendees at dance performances, than non-dancers; that they have typically lower incomes and tend to read more, play more video games and visit art exhibits more often. We are further able to separate the sample of dancers in relation to various types of dance practised, allowing us to provide insights on the differences between them.     

Developing U.S. teachers’ intercultural competence: Does professional development matter?

Intercultural competence is an important skill for K-12 educators to effectively teach a demographically changing population of young people. This paper builds on research that uses the Intercultural Development Inventory to assess change in intercultural competence among K-12 educators. This study aims to understand the extent of change in educators’ intercultural competence in an urban district that has implemented an intercultural initiative based on Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. Analysis of pre- and post-test data from the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) revealed a significant, and medium effect size, positive change in IDI overall development scores. The data also reveal that behavioral adaptation changed significantly and to a greater extent than cognitive adaptation. The study's findings suggest that intercultural competence can be developed through district and school-based professional development programs, in which the DMIS and the IDI serve as a process model to guide intercultural development. Given the variance in the change in teachers’ intercultural competence, school leaders and trainers should be careful to provide developmentally appropriate training that supports teachers’ learning.     

Angels With Dirty Faces: Who Invited Slumdog Millionaire and The Visitor?

Two recent movies, The Visitor and Slumdog Millionaire, exemplify very different ways of dealing with the pains of inequality in modern life. Popular culture celebrates the successes of meritorious individuals from backgrounds of victimization and oppression, but it struggles to find positive themes when social arrangements continue to victimize other meritorious individuals. We may appear to transcend our past inequalities, but we still have present inequalities to struggle against. Similarities to recent political events, the unsettled issues of immigration, the fear of Muslims, and the election of a multiracial President are noted.     

Who is allowed to stay? Settlement deservingness preferences towards migrants in four European countries

Following the refugee crisis, European countries have tried to stimulate the integration of migrants into local society. However, the public, influenced by negative framing of migrants by media and political actors, may feel that not all migrants are equally deserving of settlement. In this study, we obtain greater insight into the public’s attitudes towards migrants by applying the deservingness framework to migrant settlement in four European countries: Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden, using the CARIN typology (control, attitude, reciprocity, identity, need). We use data from the European Social Survey Round 1 (2002) and Round 7 (2014), and online survey data from 2017. We can draw four main conclusions: 1) (at least) three out of five CARIN-criteria (attitude, reciprocity, and identity) apply to settlement deservingness, 2) the identity criterion is considered the ‘least’ important criterion, while attitude is considered most important, but 3) identity has become increasingly important over time, and 4) there is significant variation in deservingness preferences between countries and over time. Findings indicate that older respondents, men, and Christians are more restrictive towards accepting migrants than younger respondents, women, and Muslims. The role of education is twofold: lower educated individuals value identity more, highly educated individuals value attitude and (future) reciprocity.     

Bilingualism in minority settings in Canada: Integration or assimilation?

This study explores social psychological correlates of bilingualism in the Canadian context. First, it investigates the relation between language confidence and identity as moderated by ethnolinguistic vitality. Second, it examines whether bilinguals can be distinguished from predominantly unilingual participants on subjective vitality and language usage and evaluates the impact of ethnolinguistic vitality on these differences. Data from Statistics Canada collected among minority Francophones outside of Quebec and minority Anglophones in Quebec (N = 7377) were used for analysis. The results show that language confidence is significantly related to levels of identity for all regions. Bilinguals are significantly distinct from predominantly monolingual participants on most factors for maintenance of identity. However, among all Francophone samples, bilinguals most resemble the French-dominant participants.     

Guess Who’s Coming to the Oscars: Multicultural Breakthroughs in Black Panther and Other Recent Movies

The movie awards for 2018 were dominated by works by and about marginalized people who are underrepresented in contemporary movies. The movies use established forms of superficial, sensational, and escapist movie-making. The conventions of these “eye candy” forms contradict and undermine the serious adult significance of the works, in obedience to the commercial demands of the movie industry.     

Racial Diversity in the Schools: A Necessary Evil?

White teachers see racial diversity in the schools as a “necessary evil.” Common beliefs are that a) Black students are saved by nurturing White teachers and well-behaved White children, and b) White students learn from “disadvantaged“ Black children the dual lesson of empathy and gratitude.     

Micro: global music made in J‐pop?

Abstract

This article tackles J‐pop as a result of diverse influences from Western music. Its strength stems from its capacity to ‘tame the exotic’, i.e. assimilate and recreate from styles that were uncommon for Asian cultures by integrating elements of rock, reggae, hip hop, etc and labelling these J‐rock, J‐reggae, J‐rap. This assimilation and indigenization process in J‐pop creation could be seen as a way to resist against competitors from other places of music production. The article also attempts to identify the specificities and assets of J‐pop in the music scene in general. It elaborates on J‐pop's coolness, and the reason why it could expand throughout East‐Asia. Pop music and pop culture flows in East‐Asia could be regarded then as a means to trigger a sense of community and togetherness through the consumption of pop culture products. Throughout the analysis on J‐pop, the article will rely on one musical example, Def Tech and Micro, as this artist tends to explore various musical genre and intermingles them, so as to create a specific style, coined ‘Jawaian reggae’.     

Shall I Help a Stranger?: Spiritual Intelligence and its Relation to Altruism,Ethnocentrism, Intercultural Willingness to Communicate,and the Intention to Act

This research explored the relationships among spiritual intelligence (SI), altruism, ethnocentrism, and intercultural willingness to communicate (IWTC), and how these related to the intention to help a culturally different stranger. Controlling for gender and age, the findings for the 281 student participants’ responses revealed that those with higher levels of SI tended to have higher levels of altruism and higher levels of IWTC. Regarding the intention to help, higher levels of altruism were linked to lower avoidance of interacting with a stranger while higher levels of ethnocentrism were linked to a greater likelihood of leaving without acting to help.